


Febrile part 1

by hellkitty



Category: Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M, Sticky Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-13
Updated: 2011-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-21 21:51:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty





	1. Chapter 1

_**Febrile part 1**_  
NC-17  
IDW  
Drift/Wing  
sticky  
Oh LORDY, people, I have failed abjectly at a kink meme fill.  I've been staring at this for DAYS and...it's irredeemable. It doesn't even hit half the kinks.  And it's quite a bit h/c which was NOT a requested kink. Exhibit A part one of my fail.

 

Drift snarled, sinking his dentae into the mesh cable of Wing’s throat.He could feel the push of the mesh against his mouth, the pulsing of the energon current, just micrometers away. His spike drove itself into Wing’s valve, heat and pressure and friction, his pelvic armor grinding against Wing’s white.He reached down, hooking one of the jet’s knees, hauling it up to his shoulder, pushing deeper in, goaded by the rising pants of Wing’s ventilation system, the hands that clawed at his shoulders, the mouth that nipped, frantically, at his audio.

He could feel the overload charge building across his system, the high tight knot of energy in the capacitor at the base of his spike sparking over his net, his entire body microtwitching with the spillover current. 

The overload ripped through him like a detonation, transfluid bursting hot and sharp down his spike’s channels, as the overload charge ran through his circuitry, tearing a gravelly cry from his throat, that he bit into Wing’s cable, until the cable gave, and the sweet tang of energon flooded his mouth.Wing’s ecstasy mixed with pain, his body shuddering against Drift’s, clinging to the white armor as though to salvation itself. 

Drift released the tension, Wing’s hips, which had been jammed up off the berth by the violence of his thrusts, eased back down.Drift licked along the hose, giving small, satisfied grunts as Wing shivered against him, adding hot shocks of pain over Wing’s net, shimmering through his ecstasy. 

Wing let his arms fold around the chassis, clinging to Drift, nuzzling against the audio until Drift raised his head.Wing smiled, turning his helm to meet Drift’s lips with his own, glossa flicking out to taste the energon glistening purple pink on the titanium plating. His gold optics glowed warm acceptance, his EM field like velvet waves brushing over Drift, luring him like a siren’s call, into a rich, deep recharge, spike still hot and sheathed in Wing’s willing body.

[***]

Drift’s second foot hit the floor in silence, and he carefully levered his weight off the berth. His Decepticon combat frame wasn’t designed for stealth—the silenced piston housings and EM dampeners were upgrades for mechs with different functional modalities. Like Turmoil who could move in an eerie, empty silence. 

The plan—such as it was—had worked.Wing had fallen into an exhausted, sated recharge, Drift’s transfluid still streaking silver and sticky over the silver thighs.He was a deep sleeper to begin with, Drift had learned, and never deeper than after having a few rounds of interfacing. 

It…wasn’t a task Drift had particularly minded.Wing was beautiful and sensual and open, and taking him, again and again, still sometimes felt like a luxury he didn’t deserve. 

Not sometimes. All the time. 

But.

The war.He had to get back to the war. This had been nice—perhaps a shore leave he hadn’t earned—but it was over.He had to go.And he couldn’t leave on Wing’s terms? But he could leave on his own. And tonight?He’d allowed himself one last indulgence in that warm, willing body.

He crept to the door, coding it with quiet fingers, muffling the chime of acknowledgement with the palm of one hand as the door cycled open.Drift knew his way out of Wing’s building—the walking way, the groundframe way, that was—and struck out on the polished smooth streets, squaring his shoulders, meeting gazes coolly, with all the long-unpracticed memory of a mech who had tried this trick countless times before. I belong here. I have a right to be here.

He didn’t, either one. He was faking his way, entirely. But he was faking his way, at least, to the exit, leaving this place he hadn’t earned, didn’t deserve. He nodded at a mech who met his gaze, aiming solidly in one direction. There was an exit to the surface. He…just had to find it.

[***]

Drift was frustrated. He knew an exit existed. He’d gotten underground to the city itself somehow. He’d just been…near dead at the time. But it had to exist.

He’d wandered for hours, the perimeter of one level, then trying to find the lift tube to another level, beginning to growl with failure, aware of the racing time. Even more aware when he heard Wing’s voice, frantic, over the comm channel. “Drift!” Wing had said. “Where are you? This isn’t funny.”He’d sounded surprised at first, then worried as Drift didn’t answer.

Then the voice got distant, disappearing altogether.Good, Drift thought. He gave up.Faster than Drift figured.Then again, living here, smothered in peace, it made sense that mechs got weak. It was small consolation as he headed up another level, determined to find the exit to the surface.

There. Finally.A large set of blast doors cut into the red-brown rock, a keypad right beside it, coded to open. Huh.Well, Drift wasn’t one to worry too much about good luck: no time wasted having to hack the code.He tapped the enter, bouncing with tension as the doors began their slow, regal roll back along their tracks.The surface. And then the ship. He’d get one, somehow. More planning than last time, perhaps.But he knew those slavers had a ship that would take him offplanet, and, well, he wouldn’t say no to a little payback.

He raced up the stairs, swearing he could taste freedom, waiting for the bright blaze of sunlight to burst across him. He never thought he’d look forward to planet-light but the underground lighting was…oppressive somehow. Even worse than a spaceship. Ships were false envelopes of safety. A city underground was like a tomb and way too much like the gutters. Sure, it was clean and bright, but still. Underground. The mass of everything above you, pressing down.

And it must be morning, by his chrono.Just a matter of another turn, another flight of steps….

Sound burst on his audio, a wild, shrieking roar of air, ions biting at his armor like acid.The sky wasn’t warm gold but an ominous purple black, and low and moving, as if pieces of it were tearing themselves off and flinging themselves at the ground.

It was hell, a sonic roar that shook him down to his base servos, flickering his vision with static, cutting his audio in and out.Some kind of storm, the worst he’d ever seen, like the Devastator Winds they used to talk about back in the gutters. He wasn’t going anywhere in this.

He tried, anyway, staggering forward, trying to get a directional lock on…anything.Nothing, no.Everything a scream of static, cutting around his armor, in the gaps, like thousands of tiny scalpels raking at him inside and out.

And there, a patch of white in the dun ground.

Wing.

Face down, one wing spread, vibrating in the tearing winds.

He’d come out here, looking for Drift.And Drift remembered the strange way the last hails on the channel had seemed to cut with static and…here. The picture was all too clear.

Drift swore, curses so vile they rattled his own audio over the storm’s violence.

He bent, scooping up Wing’s prostrate form, and turned back to the stairs.

 


	2. Febrile 2

_**Febrile 2**_  
PG-13  
IDW  
Drift/Wing  
Yet moar failed kinkmeme, oh and mach storms gleefully and unrepentantly stolen from Crystal Singer.

 

He still didn’t know how he managed to get Wing back to Wing’s quarters without being stopped. Perhaps they thought Wing was overcharged.Perhaps they were so used to not suspecting anything that it was impossible to imagine anything malign.But he’d made it back,concentrating on one foot in front of the other, the heavy sway of the jet’s dead weight, until he lay Wing down carefully on the berth. Only then did he let himself survey the damage—the white armor pitted and scored, the servos limp and unresponsive, armor hot to the touch.

“Wing,” he said, kneeling next to him, prodding at the chassis.“Come on.”He was acutely aware of the irony—Wing had been begging him to respond, and now he was doing the same.“Come _on_!”

A soft whimper of pain, and the optics onlined, thin, thready gold.They whirred in and out of focus, as if the programming couldn’t sustain them. One hand reached for Drift’s attempting to squeeze it. “You’re safe,” Wing whispered. “I was so worried.”

Drift growled, at himself.And at Wing.He wanted, would have accepted, if the jet were mad at him.But that soft, febrile concern, he couldn’t handle.

“I’m fine,” he muttered. Obviously. One of us was up and functional.”What was that?”

A feeble smile. “Mach storm. It’s like the Devastator Winds, but over the crystal hills.”He seemed wanting to say more, but his head lolled back, exhausted.Drift could piece together enough. Ions over piezoelectric crystals.Bad news.

“Should get you a medic,” he said, knowing there would be hard questions, and very bad answers to them.

“No,” Wing said, floatily, his hot arms wrapping around Drift’s chassis. “Just need to recharge. Be fine.”He seemed to snuggle against Drift’s frame, heat transferring over the metal.“Just need rest,” he murmured into Drift’s helm. And Drift let himself be pulled down, lending the coolness of his own frame to Wing’s clinging heat, hoping the jet was right.

[***]

“Need to cool you down,” he muttered.Wing had not cooled in his recharge, and seemed…almost less responsive, whimpering and moaning.Drift felt the cool air strike him as he pulled away from the jet’s embrace.Air cooling wasn’t enough.He needed to do something more.

He grabbed for Wing’s datapad. It had to have some sort of first aid manual.

Wing whimpered, febrile hands clutching around one of Drift’s elbows, trying to coax him back down.“Drift,” he said, voice high and strained.“Don’t go.”

Drift twitched.A little too close to home, that request. “Right here,” he said.He scrolled through the datapad. Right.Check levels.Just like an injury, he told himself.Calm down. You’ve seen hundreds of injured mechs in your life: never lost your head before.

He rolled over to face Wing on his knees.“Panel,” he said, hands poised. Where the slag did these mechs keep their access panels?“Need to check your levels.”

The helm lolled toward him, vision blocked by the bulk of the nacelle. “Levels? No, don’t go to the upper level, Drift. Stay here.”His hand moved vaguely for Drift’s arm.

Drift frowned. “I’m right here,” he said, sharply.“I want to check your fluid levels.”

No response. Not encouraging.Drift poked, his fingers skimming over the armor. He thought he knew Wing’s body, knew the points to arouse the mech, but knowing the location of the subsystem access, he was lost.“Come on,” he whispered, running his hands over the chassis.“Has to be around here.”There.He pressed the catch, and the panel opened. He tapped the code for level readouts.Frowned.Coolant was low.Well, something he could fix at least.

He levered off the berth, heading for the maintenance facility. Drift rifled through the cabinets until he found a bag of coolant, fingers clumsy on the foreign catches as he attached it into the panel.Wing shuddered, the cool fluid hitting his lines, his whimpers turning into soft, small moans.

“Better?” Drift hoped so. As much as he did ‘hope’.

“I’m fine,” Wing said. “Just…tired.”He shivered again. “But yes, it feels nice. Thank you.”Drift could hear the struggle for coherence in the voice.

Drift narrowed his optics. Tired.After that much recharge.“Don’t lie to me,” he said.

“I’m not. I’m fine,” Wing said, trying to push himself up to one elbow, lurching forward, barely catching himself with a palm to the berth.

Drift pushed him back. “Fine. Right.”My fault, he thought.This is my fault. I have to fix this.“Let it work.”

Wing managed a wan smile. “Kind of you.”He raised one hand, trailing the back of the hot knuckles against Drift’s cheek armor.

Drift wanted to flinch away. Wasn’t kind, wasn’t anything like kind. It was his fault to begin with.“Shouldn’t have gone out there,” he muttered, bending to check the coolant levels.

“I was worried,” Wing said.

Drift made a noise in his vocalizer, trying to drown out Wing’s soft concern. “Don’t worry about me.” No one ever had.Drift didn’t know what to do with it.

Wing gave a fading smile. “You’re so good to me,” he said, optic shutters drooping closed.

No, Drift thought, I’m not.But Wing had floated off into a light recharge. Drift lay down next to Wing, feeling the heat rise off the white body, watching the mech’s face with an unfamiliar anxiety.

[***]

He woke before Wing, disturbed by the heat and the soft bleating whimpers.Drift’s hand hovered over the hot frame, torn between waking him and not. 

No.Let him rest.His autorepair’d do better than anything Drift could think up.He’d filled the coolant reservoir. He just had to be patient.

Right. Just.

Drift rolled over, snatching the datapad from where he’d magnetized it against the berth’s side.He wasn’t getting any more recharge tonight. Might as well try to amuse himself.

He flicked it on, tapping the screen down to lowlight, staring at it for a long moment, trying to grasp the differences between pads he knew and this one, now that he wasn’t frantically searching for manuals.This one had tabs.Huh. And one was labeled ‘Drift’.

Drift shot a look at the fevered jet.Taking notes on me, are you?He tapped the tab, mouth braced. Whatever Wing thought of him, he could take. Good to shatter this illusion while he could.Should have left while I had the chance.

…what?“Ten Tricks to Keep Your Lover Interested.” What…the…?

Drift skimmed the article—or tried to—the effusively perky tone actually kind of hurt his cortex.‘One trick,’ it burbled in breathless prose, ‘is to take advantage of ‘innocent’ contact.He may think you’re simply in recharge, and unable to help your wandering hands…but you know better. And what better way to wake him up?’

You…little…sneak.Drift pinched his mouth shut, glaring at the prone form of the jet.So, the other morning, the sleek silver thigh sliding over his pelvic frame, hand cupping over his interface hatch?Fake?

He frowned, bending his head over the article.Time to see what else the jet had been up to.

 


	3. Febrile 3

_**Febrile 3**_  
PG-13  
IDW  
Drift/Wing  
ref sticky  
part three du fail

“Need fuel,” Drift said, awkwardly hauling—or trying to—Wing’s shoulders across his chassis.He juggled one cube of the three he’d brought over, in his hand.

“Not hungry,” Wing said, twisting his head away, audial fins scraping on Drift’s chest.

Drift frowned. It had been over a daycycle. Wing needed fuel. “Drink anyway,” he said.

“This is ridiculous,” Wing said, squirming. Drift pinned him with an arm across the chassis.

“What’s ridiculous is you not fueling.”He held the cube up. “Drink.”

“I don’t need fuel,” Wing said, voice querulous. He pushed against Drift’s arm.

“Right. Can’t even get my arm off you, Wing.”Tell me another one.“Drink.”

“No!” Wing squirmed, energon slopping over the edges of the open cube.“See?” Wing said.“Don’t need it.”

Yeah, that made perfect sense.Drift sighed, fighting the urge to clamp one hand over Wing’s face, pinning the head back against his shoulder and forcing the slagging cube against the febrile mouthplates.But that wouldn’t work here. Well, then, what else, genius?

The perky article popped to the top of his process queue. Stupid, he thought. Ridiculous. And for good measure? No slaggin’ way.

Wing wriggled, the wings scraping hot and buzzing with distortion, over his chassis.“I’m fine,” he whined. “Don’t want any.”

Oh this was…beyond words.Fine.Chances were Wing wouldn’t even remember it.“Really?” Drift forced himself to say, leaning forward, between Wing’s shoulder and his cheek, lifting Wing’s energon-wet hand to his mouth. “Shame to let it go to waste.”

Primus, what am I even doing?

Shut up. In the name of getting Wing better. So…you can desert him. Whatever.Just…shut down that part of your cortex that tries to make sense of things.

Drift flicked his glossa out, against the wet fingertip, feeling the sharp burst of energon across his net, tingling and sweet.

Don’t stop now, idiot, he told himself, parting his mouthplates, hooking one finger in with his glossa, sucking the energon off it.He felt a burn of embarrassment, that almost, but didn’t quite, drown out the sharp hiss from Wing, the way the hand went suddenly still in his.Drift shut his optic shutters, taking another finger in, letting his glossa skate over the fine plates of the finger, until his lip plates flirted with the plate on the back of Wing’s hand.

A strangled whimper, and when Drift cracked his optic shutters, he saw the jet’s face rapt, mouth in an aroused ‘o’, gold optics burning and hot. The EM field flared against his chassis, cutting some of the edge of mortification.

“I-I think I could maybe try some?” Wing offered.

Drift drew Wing’s fingers slowly from his mouth, hiding a sly flare of his optics.“All right.”He held the cube up,resting Wing’s head on his shoulder, feeling Wing’s hands cup around his, guiding the cube to his mouth.He tipped in just a little, Wing having to butt his mouth against it, and then tipped it back, so that the jet luxuriated in the velvet tingle of the fuel over his starved systems. “More,” Drift insisted, and Wing softened against him, hot wing panels against his chassis, head tilted obediently upward.Drift felt something stir within him, some sort of strange tingling warmth spreading from his belly, as he watched Wing’s mouth take the cube, the glossa licking nervously at the lip plates.

No. You do not want Wing now.

Yes, he did.And Wing wriggled down against him, systems humming contentedly with the rush of energon through his lines, the hot armor firing all of his own tactile sensors.

“You feel nice,” Wing murmured, optics drooping closed again.

“Yeah,” Drift muttered. So do you. A little too nice. He lay the cube down, letting his palms ride down Wing’s chassis, feeling the sleek armor slide under his touch, feeling Wing arch up into the touch. A growl burbled from his vocalizer, his spike clicking to pressurize behind its housing.Wing gave a pleasurable little hum, head lolling against Drift’s shoulder, mouth turned idly inviting a kiss.

The lipplates were hot, the mouth that parted under his scalding his glossa, sucking the coolness from him.Drift’s hand clutched over the interface hatch, between Wing’s silver thighs, growling with want.He pulled away from the kiss, twisting his body out from under the jet’s, his spike already anticipating the feverish valve, its desperate molten clutch.

He pushed over, mouth searching the jet’s throat, heat licking at him like flames as he levered a knee between Wing’s thighs.Wing whimpered under his biting kiss, the optics suddenly flaring with worry, hands clutching at his upper arms.“Drift,” Wing whispered, pleading. “S-slower?”

Drift looked up. “What?”

“Slower. Could you?” The beautiful mouth pinched down, optics furrowing. “Please?”

Drift’s hand froze over the interface hatch’s release, feeling the sudden cold burst of rejection. He pushed off. “Never mind.”

“Drift?” Wing sounded distressed. “Please. I want you. Just…too much?”

Too much was still rejection, Drift thought, frowning, as he levered himself off the jet’s weight, flopping down, back to the jet.“Get some recharge,” he muttered, feeling the howling protest of his spike as he curled on his side, Wing’s fever boiling against his back, no match for the shame and frustration that scalded him from within.

 

[***]

Wing was getting worse, murmuring half-words, optics never fully unshuttering. The wings had spread themselves open, to vent heat through the surface area. The legs tossed, restlessly, the ventilation systems panting.

Drift lay a damp rag over Wing’s chassis, swabbing it gingerly along the white span. Wing shifted beneath him.All previous thoughts of thwarted lust were smothered in something half like concern.Wing’s brow furrowed, querulous, his optic shutters flicking half-open, disturbed, restless, his hands opening and closing helplessly. “Come on,” Drift whispered, urgently, swabbing down the lighter armor of the thighs, and trying desperately hard not to think…certain thoughts, “cool down.”

Wing whimpered, face turning toward Drift’s voice, making a wordless sound.

“What?” Drift muttered. “You need to cool down.”He reached over for the basin he’d brought from the maintenance facility, rewetting the cloth.The water was evaporating fast off the chassis and thighs.He moved to swab the inside of Wing’s arm.

He worked his way down the arm, swiping over the hot fingers, as they curled around his.“Cool down,” he repeated like some magic spell or chant.“Come on, Wing.Just…cycle over. Cool down.”

The optic shutters cracked—twin lines of gold. “I like your voice,” Wing said, his own cracking, low on charge.

Drift snorted. His voice was…awful. Rough, raw, used to shouting orders over the din of combat.“Know you’re sick now,” he said, reaching to rewet the rag.

A hot hand on his hip. “Can you sing to me? I’d really like it.”

Sing.Drift turned, glaring. “I don’t sing.” Fever was scrambling Wing’s cortex.

“Could you? For me?”

Drift growled. “Don’t know any stupid songs.”He knew a few fairly bawdy drinking songs. That was about it.Or, if he really thought of it, a few commercial jingles they used to hear wafting like echoes from another world, down into the gutters.Correction. The only songs he did know were stupid.

“Could you try?” The hand slid up from his hip around his waist, seeming to cast sparks over his sensornet. “I like your voice. Even if it’s not a song or anything.”

Drift glowered for a long moment wringing out the rag.No one had ever complimented him on anything like this. What he could do, yes, but not what he was.“I don’t sing.”He turned back to Wing.“Lie down.”

“Then don’t sing.Just…talk.”Wing pulled himself up, hand hooked around Drift’s waist. Drift pushed him back.

“Lie down.”

A flare of a cheeky grin that faded far too fast for Drift’s liking. “I will if you sing.”

Drift splayed a palm on Wing’s chassis, pushing him back.He could feel the whirling surge of the spark through the metal armor, the resistance of Wing’s shoulders against the berth. “No.”

“Please?”And the teasing tone crumbled into something almost piteous, a plea for some tiny bit of comfort, and Drift felt small and mean for even thinking about rejecting it.

“Don’t sing,” Drift muttered, even as he felt himself draw out the syllables. And he didn’t sing, since he knew no songs with words, but he let his vocalizer buzz, shaping loose notes, letting them rise and fall in some melodic echo of the rag he swiped over Wing’s chassis.

Primus this felt stupid.But Wing’s joints released, sagging gratefully down onto the berth again, optics dipping closed.Even the hand that held onto Drift slowly opened, falling aside, as Drift half-hummed his way through a tuneless song.

Stupid, and he’d kill anyone who witnessed it with his bare hands, but looking at the tight lines of worry soothe on the jet’s face…it was worth it.


	4. Febrile 4

_**Febrile 4**_  
NC-17  
IDW  
Drift/Wing  
eh, let's finish this. Whole thing's about 6K words.  So it doesn't fill the prompt, but at least you can see I tried?  
  


‘Tell your lover how you feel.It’s all right to be nervous! Consider that your nerves may be charming to your partner, a sign of how deeply you feel!’

Ugh. Seriously. This article should be weaponized. Drift was sorely tempted to throw the datapad across the room. Why the slag was Wing even reading this tripe?Giving Drift even the vaguest indication that he was willing to interface—like…sitting down within arm’s reach, really—was more than enough. Wing didn’t need any tricks, especially not stupid ones.

Why would he think he even did, though?Was…did Wing really think he needed them?Drift looked down, where Wing had curled himself against Drift’s leg, the white planes of his audial flares on Drift’s hip, arms wrapped over one thigh.He lowered one hand, awkwardly, brushing over the jutting shoulder.‘Affectionate touching is a great way to speak without words!’the text of the article bounced up to him. Frag. Stupid thing. He slapped it down on the berth, determined to ignore it. Mechs who took advice from anything that sounded that…fraggin’ exclamatory deserved all the bad they got.

But Wing? Didn’t. Didn’t deserve Drift: could do so much better than him.

He ran a thumb along the contour edge of the flare. How did he feel, anyway?

“Stupid,” he said, quietly. “If it was dangerous, should’ve let me go and die anyway.Solve a lot of your problems.”

In his recharge, Wing murmured, arms tightening around the thigh.

Drift’s mouth quirked.“Never think about the consequences, because normally…just me that gets hurt if things blow up.”Like Turmoil.He could handle that.“You’re not supposed to come after me, Wing.You’re not supposed to care.”

And Drift realized…he wasn’t supposed to care either.He should have been able to leave Wing, walk right on by him, braving the storm himself. But the white frame, the limp vibration of the outstretched wing as the howling winds scraped across it seemed to jab at him, like some tight vine digging in roots.

“What are you doing to me?” he said, his voice almost quavering, the hand, palm flat, stilling on the white flare.

Wing said nothing, sighing gently against Drift’s hip.

[***]

It was probably a bad sign, Drift thought, that Wing was sleeping so much.The artificial city’s artificial lights signaled daytime outside, and he pushed off the berth to activate the light/sound dampeners.Shadows enveloped the white frame again, Wing giving a soft releasing whimper as the light was cut.More sleeping.

Wing squirmed on the berth, one hand sliding up his rib strut.Drift’s optics tracked the motion, imagining the sleek armor, the angles and planes, as Wing gave a high quiet sigh of something like pleasure.

Which sound Drift did not need.His spike surged to readiness. No.

He snarled, snatching up the datapad, stepping across the barrier onto the landing ledge.He needed to get away from the temptation, the sinuous body that called to his hands, that soft, yearning mouth.

No. Concentrate. Read something.

He flicked the pad back on and the same stupid article came up.

Stupid article.Stupid Wing looking for him in the middle of a stupid mach storm. Should have just—

\--what?Should have just left Drift out there to die?

Frag.Drift glowered through the barrier at the prone white form.As he watched, Wing rolled to one side, optics glowing online, searching the room, buzzing in and out of focus. “Drift?” Wing swung his legs forward, over the edge of the berth, struggling to stand. “Where are you?”

Drift cocked his head. The barrier wasn’t perfect—he was clearly silhouetted. But Wing was looking right at him and not seeing him.

“Drift?Please.It’s not safe.”Wing struggled to stand, wobbling on underpowered servos, his balance gyros glitching.“I know you don’t like it here. Please. We can talk about this.”

Drift’s optic shutters closed over a sudden pain.No, he hated it here, hated everything about this place.But Wing’s pleading voice, the way that, even caught in a hallucination, he was trying to protect Drift, burned something in his spark.“Right here,” he said, stepping through the barrier, wincing at the sound of his own voice, harsh and raw compared to Wing’s musical gentleness.

“Drift?”The optics tilted, unseeing.“It’s dangerous. You’ll die if you stay out here.”He took a step forward, before the servos failed.Drift rushed forward, barely catching him before he hit the ground.

“I’m right here,” he repeated, tilting the jet’s chin toward him, his other hand hard around the back. “I’m right here.”Heat poured off Wing in waves.Drift felt a skirl of something like panic at Wing’s confusion.He hefted the jet in one arm, swinging him with the same brutal efficiency he’d used under Turmoil’s command, dragging Wing into the maintenance facility.He slapped the dials of the washrack on cool, before stepping under the spray, dragging Wing with him.

The cleanser hissed around them, glossing over Wing’s body, seeping, Drift hoped, under the armor, cooling the systems beneath.Wing gasped, clinging against Drift, but his optics cleared with recognition.“You’re here,” Wing exclaimed, his hands clutching at Drift’s helm, pulling him into a sudden startled kiss, the hot mouth a sharp contrast to the cool cleanser raining over both of them, swallowing any words Drift might have said.

His own hands tightened around the jet’s chassis, unable to resist temptation at least that far.The wings spread, opening to the cleanserfall, Wing’s body sliding slick and wet over against Drift’s.Drift growled, pushing away. “No. Too much, remember?”

“No,” Wing murmured, nipping at Drift’s mouth. “Please. I want you.”And his voice, and his hands, and his body importuned Drift, begging, wanting.Drift wasn’t used to this, either: being wanted.

Drift dropped his weight, pulling Wing down with him to the floor of the washrack, cleanser sheeting over them, his mouth locked with Wing’s.He forced restraint, dragging his hand slowly down the white frame, rising up on his knees over the jet.Drift opened the interface hatch, cascading the cleanser off his hand into the newly-exposed components. Wing shuddered underneath him, the mouth pushing fiercely against his. Drift’s sensor net blazed on, wanting nothing more than to sink himself into the jet’s body.

But no. He wasn’t going to get rejected again. He let his fingers circle the valve cover, feeling the cool liquid sluice over the hot metal, Wing shivering, gasping at the contact.He gave an aroused growl as Wing squirmed into the touch, the optics flaring up at Drift. His own ventilation hissed from the force of restraining himself as the valve cover snicked aside.Drift raised his head, hovering to watch Wing’s face as he circled the valve’s rim, dipping one finger into the valve.It was hot, the calipers heat-clamped, tight around his finger.His spike wouldn’t have fit in here anyway.He wormed the finger into the valve, Wing squeaking and jolting under him.

Drift shifted his position off to one side, straddling one of Wing’s thighs, his own hatch snapping open.

Wing squeaked, as Drift twisted his finger in the valve, hips rocking up against him, hands slipping over Drift’s arms.Drift grinned, isolating one of the sensor nodes in the valve’s lining, rolling it against the calipers with one finger.“Oh!” Wing exclaimed, optics flaring wild and wide.“Drift…!”

“Yes,” Drift said, hearing a teasing note in his own voice.He wriggled the finger, almost laughing with a fierce joy as Wing cried out.He clamped Wing’s thigh between his, his spike jutting between them like a private joke.He ground his body against the thigh, spike sliding on Wing’s hot armor.“Your turn,” Drift said, gritting his dentae, pushing another finger in beside the first, in the scalding valve. “Sing for me.”

Wing did: a moan rising to a sharp wailing ululation in tempo with Drift’s fingers, his heat-tightened valve calipers twitching and squeezing erratically around them. Drift’s grin took a feral edge, his own hips thrusting harder, more insistently, against Wing’s body, lubricant smearing between them, cleanser raining down over them, heat sheeting of the jet’s frame even as he twisted and clutched at Drift.

Wing keened, his valve crackling over Drift’s fingers, overload wracking him, as heat washed over him.Cleanser steamed from the white frame, the body bucking and writhing against Drift, Wing’s mouth stretched in an ecstatic shape.And then the hands closed around Drift’s helm, hauling him into a fierce, wanting kiss, burying the last of Wing’s keening note against Drift’s mouth.

Wing dropped back, spent, optics gold and clear, heat shedding from his body.“Thank you. For staying with me. For bringing me back.” And there was no blame for the escape, no anger, no recrimination that without Drift, Wing wouldn’t have been out in the storm himself. Every moment of Wing’s suffering was tied to Drift.

Drift licked the last of the heat from Wing’s mouth, as if that could erase the pain.“Didn’t want you hurt.”He wanted to leave, to get back to the war, where at least he fit in. But he’d never wanted Wing to get hurt. Not his fault. And he realized, as he said it, how…stupid and impossible it was.And how confused he had become.Part of him longed for that clarity, that had let him coolly look down Turmoil’s cannon barrel, lock down Turmoil’s ship, slipping away with almost mocking ease.Wing had confused…everything.

“I was so worried,” Wing murmured. His hand stroked Drift’s cheekplate, optics tilting with worry at the taut expression on Drift’s face.

“Not worth it,” Drift said, leaning down, nuzzling gently against Wing’s audial flare, edging his still pressurized spike gently off the thigh plate.

“You are,” Wing said, tugging Drift into a gentle hug, his frame finally—finally—cooling. Drift’s hand was still pinched in Wing’s valve, the calipers cycling gently around it, loosening, and Wing’s hips tipped up in promise and invitation.Wing’s voice dropped to a whisper, a filament of sound. “You are.”

[epilogue]

“This.”Drift dropped the datapad on the berth between them, like an accusation.

“It’s…a datapad?” Wing blinked, looking up from where he was buffing off the excess enamel.It was achingly good to see the white white again and the red bright and gleaming, not dulled and stripped by the mach storm winds.

“That article.”

“Oh.”The rag stilled.“You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Wasn’t very well secured,” Drift countered. “Manipulating me?”

“No! It’s not like that.”The rag wrung in Wing’s hands. “I…you’re not very good at subtle cues. I thought it would help.”

“Help what?”

“Help…,” Wing squirmed. “Help me.I want you to be happy here, Drift. That’s…you know that. But I want it to be…with…me.”The gold optics dropped to the floor, fingers tangling in the rag.

It was…so stupid and so ridiculous that Drift threw his head back, laughing.“So…you think ‘tricks’ are better?”

“I’m sorry. It was wrong of me.”The head bowed, quiet.

“No. It’s just that….these things. They’re…they’re ridiculous, what they advise.”Singing, fingers. Random groping.Talking about _feelings_.

Wing tilted his face up. “But they worked.”

“Worked?” Drift growled, lunging forward, pushing Wing back against the berth. “I’ll show you what works.”His mouth found Wing’s, the kiss feral, hard, Wing’s mouth cool and inviting, opening under his, Wing’s hands coming to his ribstruts.

“Will you now?” Wing drawled, at a break in the kiss.

“Now,” Drift growled, his hand raking the jet’s interface hatch as Wing arched up against his touch. “And without any stupid advice column.”

Wing laughed. “You really hate that thing.”

“Stupid thing. Glad you don’t remember any of it.”

Wing’s hand curled around Drift’s helm, teasing one audial finial, his leg hooking around Drift’s thigh. “Don’t I…?”

 


End file.
